God Behind Bars: The Amazing Story Of Prison Fellowship

by John Perry, Charles W. Colson (Foreword by)

When Charles Colson was released after seven months of prison time following the Watergate scandal, the last thing on earth he wanted to do was go back into those dark, frightening prisons, but God called him to do just that. Thus was born a life-long ministry, and here, for the first time, if the amazing success story of Prison Fellowship's thirty years of work in the darkest places on earth.

240 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 2006

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

John Perry has coauthored books with John MacArthur, Richard Land, Mike Huckabee, among others and written historical books about Charles Colson, the Scopes Monkey Trials, and more. He is a two-time Gold Medallion Award finalist and lives in Nashville, Tennessee.

Reviews

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel like since I did not finish the book that the only fair rating I can give is a three. I really wanted to like this book and kept trying to trudge through it. I am sure it has a great message. The text was just so dry to me and this is coming from a person who usually loves nonfiction, especially nonfiction Christian. I also did not realize who John Perry is so I had no clue that's the book would be so closely tied to politics, which is of zero interest to me.

[Hailey Hudson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book. I learned a lot that I didn’t know but should know. Interestingly, I also saw a lot of parallels between chronic illness ministry and prison ministry. I think one of my biggest takeaways was that advocacy and ministry should go hand in hand.

[Kathy Penrod · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this book. I thought that it would be redundant because I had read Born Again, Life Sentence and most of Colson's other books. But this one is different in that it focused entirely upon the history of the Prison Fellowship Ministry. How it came to be, mistakes that were made, crises that occurred, and ultimately the successes that took place. I have supported this ministry off and on over the years and this book helped me see that Prison Fellowship is an organization that is truly worthy of support. It's too bad that society thinks reformation can take place without God and the influence of His church because as this book points out, there is no other world view that works.